Pebble Beach gets highest final-round rating in 15 years

Despite going on the air 20 minutes late, or perhaps because of it, CBS drew a 5.1 average overnight Nielsen rating Sunday for final-round coverage of the Pebble Beach National Pro-Am.

The tournament, which had Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson paired in the next-to-last group, was the highest for the final round at Pebble Beach since Feb. 2, 1997 (5.8).

CBS hit the air at 3:20 p.m. EST because of a Big Ten basketball game that ran long. Mickelson, whose early-round exploits were shown on The Golf Channel, fired an 8-under-par 64 to win the tournament.

Woods, who was two strokes ahead of Mickelson heading into the round, ballooned to a 75 and finished tied for 18th, nine strokes behind the winner. It was the first time in 10 years that Woods has played the Pebble Beach event.

2 Responses

Ironically…all the pundits who proclaimed yesterday EARLY in the day that it would be Tiger’s coming out party couldn’t have been more wrong…and yet, they are still saying it today…I stopped hating on Tiger 3 years ago and started hatin’ on all the other players who cowered at his presence….now, it is all the media and newprint guys who are “trying” to report Tiger back to the top…really sad…Tiger will never be as great as he was…and there are people and players who say he will be better than before….what they all fail to recognize is that Tiger doesn’t have his invincibility cloak and fear-factor against all the other players anymore…he will have to earn his wins….should/could come this year but not the way the media thinks…

Tiger will never approach what he was – older, more creaky, thinner on top like many of us. My guess – he wins a couple of more majors but will just be one of the the Top 10-15 players in the world over the next 5-10 years. He’s not as good as he was and the competition is getting stronger too. Jack’s record will remain. Go Phil – get that US Open this year!